


after

by paperpenpal



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Fluff, No Beta, Sylvgrid Week (Fire Emblem), day 5: reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:48:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24565651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperpenpal/pseuds/paperpenpal
Summary: Sometime long long after a war, on a hot humid summer’s day, Sylvain finds himself staring up the dirt path at a modest cabin, lakeside in Galatea, where the forest bristles with the single cool breeze that passes.
Relationships: Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 18
Kudos: 34





	after

Sometime long, long after a war, on a hot humid summer’s day, Sylvain finds himself staring up the dirt path at a modest cabin, lakeside in Galatea, where the forest bristles with the single cool breeze that passes.

It has been a long time since he has been here. He has been too busy to visit.

After the war, Galatea had built itself back up. All their debts have long since been repaid, their farmland mostly restored, and its people much more prosperous.

It had been a slow-going process, one that marches on to this day, but it is no longer in peril. Galatea can afford a break.

This home, far away from town, is a special place, he thinks. It is a quiet place. A place where one can sit and stare out into the water for hours without a care.

He does not knock on the door. Instead, he circles around back, where he knows a small stable to be.

He sees her before she sees him. Her back is to him, her blonde hair forever kept short, even long past the way the war needed her to. Ingrid had never liked the long braid, he knows, she used to complain about how it would tangle, how long it would take to dry, how it would always be in the way, but she had kept it because it was more fitting for a lady- easier to marry off, but he supposes she doesn’t have to worry about that anymore.

She is feeding an old pegasus, long past his prime, gentle with the way she pets him, humming something soft Sylvain cannot hear.

It is almost too peaceful a scene to intrude on. It is Ingrid in a simple mint summer dress at her own tiny stable with a steed and no worries, highlighted among a backdrop of enormous, continuous pines casting shade down.

It was all any of them could have hoped for in that too long war. It was all anyone ever hoped for after while they were rebuilding afterward.

He spends too long lingering, too long staring. His heart is full and aching at the sight, too long unseen. He has missed her, oh how he has missed her so.

Then squinting at him from across the way, shading the sun from her eyes with a hand, Ingrid registers him.

“Sylvain?” she calls from across, a little bit confused, a little bit hopeful.

“Long time no see,” he says with a smile.

She runs at him then and he braces himself for the way she jumps into his arms. He can’t help but spin her just like she can’t help how her laugh, like a song, echos against the bark of the trees and upwards out into the sky.

“What are you doing here?” she asks breathlessly, a hand splayed against his chest as he puts her down and steadies her again on the uneven ground.

“I had some extra time so I thought I’d come and say hi,” he explains, also a little breathless. He can’t help but grin, can’t help but be filled by the warmth of their bodies so close. He does not let go of her, Ingrid does not move any further.

“This is a pretty long way, Sylvain.” She laughs again. “Not even remotely close to you.”

He shrugs and gives no other explanation. Instead, he asks, “how’s your daughter?”

At this Ingrid breaks away from his embrace, taking a step back away to frown, but it is not in sadness; it is more in sternness, in consideration, and a little in frustration. “She’s been in a mood,” she explains.

“What do you mean?” he asks, curious. He is not quite sure what it means for a child to be ‘in a mood.’

Ingrid lays her hand out on her hips. “Something about her father,” she huffs. “So she’s being a bit of a…”

“Brat,” Sylvain finishes with a snicker.

“Yeah,” Ingrid admits with a shrug and a grin, “but that’s pretty rude to say about your own child. Who would have thought parenting would be so hard?”

“And the other one?” he asks. “Where’s he?”

“Inside,” she nods towards the cabin, “watching her. Although I’m sure he’s really just reading and pretending to watch her.”

Sylvain is halfway through a laugh when the back door of the cabin bursts wide open with a loud dramatic bang.

“Daddy!”

Sylvain turns and sees, at the top of the porch steps, a tiny little girl with a long, red braid and emerald eyes, and watches as her grin widens before rushing straight towards him arms wide open, not unlike how her mother did a few moments earlier.

“Hey darling,” he greets, leaning down as she jumps into his arms, wrapping tightly around his neck.

“You’re here!” she sings happily, as he rises with her and spins. “You’re here, you’re here! Mommy said you couldn’t come to the lake with us this year but I knew you would. See mommy, you were wrong.”

She is big for a four-year-old but still easy enough to carry. He isn’t eager for the day when she’ll be too heavy to lift. He loves this, a part of him wishes she would stay this size always.

“Yes, that’s right.” He grins at Ingrid, “Mommy was wrong.”

Ingrid rolls her eyes but doesn't hide her own smile. It’s too bright. This is everything he used to be afraid to dream of.

“It’s okay to be wrong mommy,” his daughter says very, very seriously, pausing to fix the most dramatic look possible for a four-year-old at Ingrid before trying to scramble off of him.

He lets her down but frowns. “That’s it?” he complains. “That’s all I get?”

“Yep!” she says running back into the house.

The guffaw Ingrid gives is glorious and any offense he feels from his clever perfect daughter falls away to the love he feels for his clever perfect wife. “A mood huh?” he says.

“I think she just missed you,” she murmurs, moving to lean against his shoulder. Despite how hot it is, despite the humidity, he wraps his arm around her and pulls her in closer. “I know I did.”

“I missed you too,” he says as he guides them into the cabin. “But I’m here now and I’m not going anywhere.”

And the best part? Neither is anything else.


End file.
